Thursday, March 29, 2012

Holiday day 4 and 5: Tauranga/Hamilton

On Wednesday mum and I headed over to Tauranga for the day. We looked around the shops, tracked down the knitting store and then visited my grandparents' at their new house.


I have to say, I wouldn't mind having this view from my kitchen.


They've had to pukeko-proof their garden. I think I may to rig something like this up for mine to keep those pesky cats off!


Today I spent the day in Hamilton. It was a ridiculously early start to get up there in time to see the balloons launching. Every year Hamilton hosts a hot air balloon festival. There's always at least one really awesome balloon - this year we were spoilt with three; Iwi the Kiwi and not one, but two kangaroos. They were so cute. Fonterra also put on a free breakfast for the thousands of people that turned out. Not a half bad way to start the day.


After that we hit the malls. I spent way too much. Check out my haul.


 I sense a theme there - green is the new red? The wee All Blacks t-shirt is for a new cousin in Argentina. I also got two more balls of merino to knit him a hat and booties. I'm so looking forward to putting on those pyjamas in a minute and hitting the hay.

My niece and I then went to a movie - Mirror Mirror. School is optional when your aunty is in town. Lunch was omelette with prawns and smoked kahawai at the cutest, vintage themed cafe on the main street. The drive home called for a stop at a berry farm for fresh berry icecream. Yum!


Back home I cooked a whole lot of mince. I stuffed the peppers from the garden and they turned out exactly as I wanted. Back in Peru a very typical dish is stuffed chillies but the type they use aren't too hot. I planted a Hungarian Yellow pepper in mum's garden and it's perfect for this job. My dad's not a fan of spicy food so I made him stuffed potatoes, another Peruvian dish. Basically you shape mashed potatoes around a small amount of mince mixture and then crumb and fry the balls. I made a pasta bake too in case anyone didn't like the first options.

After dinner I got a quick sewing lesson. I'm doing two sewing classes at Handmade so I really needed a refresher on how to use a sewing machine. I made this cute pin cushion.


I'm hoping to get up earlyish tomorrow to make some cucumber chutney and pack my things ready to go back to Hamilton in the evening. We have plans to go out for dinner and then I'll be heading to my friend's house to spend the weekend. After that, Auckland. This holiday is going far too quickly.

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